Desecration of the American flag at the US embassy in Cairo, Sept. 11, 2012 Photo: AP

In the aftermath of Algeria’s effort to retake a gas field from terrorists linked to al Qaeda, the temptation may be to blame Algeria for the deaths of so many hostages.

Perhaps the raid could have been handled differently, and there’s an argument that had Algiers been more cooperative with earlier efforts to deal with al Qaeda’s affiliates in northern Mali, this massacre might not have happened. Still, it strikes us that second-guessing aggressive actions taken by a government under siege will not make anyone safer.

The truth is that once terrorists gain control of any place where it holds hostages, a hopeful outcome becomes far more difficult. Today America has more than 6 million citizens living abroad, many of them highly vulnerable. The best way to protect them is for our government to make certain there is a sure and terrible price to pay for harming an American.

In its statement Saturday, the White House said that “in the coming days, we will remain in close touch with the government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of what took place so that we can work together to prevent tragedies like this in the future.” The words come just months after the al Qaeda flag was raised over our embassy in Cairo and our ambassador was killed in Benghazi.

Ask yourself this: Is there anything here that would lead the hard men who planned and led these murderous assaults to conclude that they had made a dangerous mistake?

Americans, of course, were not the only innocent civilians whose lives were taken in Algeria. News reports say that British, Japanese, Malaysian, French and Colombian citizens were killed as well.

All of which points to one of the few certainties of the 21st century: The whole world becomes a much more dangerous place when people do not shudder at the thought of targeting an American citizen.